Firefighters work in Spain in August
Pedro Pascual/Anadolu via Getty Images
This year will be the second warmest year on record, following 2024, with many regions experiencing unprecedented storms, wildfires and heat waves.
According to the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), the average temperature in 2025 is currently 1.48°C above the pre-industrial average. This would tie it with 2023 and place it in second place behind 2024, which was 1.6°C above pre-industrial levels.
While the El Niño climate phase led to a warmer planet in 2024, the world is now in the alternative La Niña phase, where rising cool water in the tropical Pacific Ocean tends to lower global temperatures. But fossil fuel emissions reached another record In 2025, this means temperatures will continue to rise, contributing to devastating extreme weather events.
“The reality is that it is extreme events that impact people, societies, our ecosystems, and we know that in a warmer world the frequency and severity of these extreme events is increasing,” says Samantha Burgess in C3S. “Storms are getting stronger because the atmosphere holds more moisture.”
Climate change has been blamed for another 16,500 deaths this summer as heat waves hit Europe. In October, Hurricane Melissa, the strongest hurricane to ever hit Jamaica, killed more than 80 people and caused an estimated Damage amounted to $8.8 billion.. The international academic organization World Weather Attribution has discovered climate change. intensified Melissa's rainfall increased by 16 percent and wind speed by 7 percent.
In November, a series of cyclones and storms caused landslides and floods in Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam. more than 1600 people died.
Arctic sea ice extent is currently the lowest on record for this time of year, and Antarctic sea ice levels are also below normal.
The three-year average temperature will exceed pre-industrial levels by 1.5°C for the first time in history, according to C3S. Scientists expect warming to exceed the long-term average of 1.5°C by 2029, contrary to the Paris Agreement target.
“There is no magical cliff at 1.5 degrees, but we do know that extreme events will get worse… as we go above 1.5 degrees,” Burgess says. “The tipping point thresholds are also getting closer.”
October report argued that one tipping point—the irreversible extinction of tropical coral reefs—has already been reached, and the world risks soon crossing the tipping point for the extinction of the Amazon rainforest and the collapse of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets, as well as Antarctic sea ice.
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